JPI EDM-900

Lowflynjack

Lowflynjack

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Jack Fleetwood
I'm buying a new plane and the owner had already ordered the JPI EDM-900 and I have the option to buy it and have it installed while the engine it out.

I'm still considering it but was wanting some feedback from those that have this unit or similar units. How do you like it? What instruments did you remove? Which ones were you approved to remove but you decided to keep and why?

I'm an old-school steam gauge kind of guy and never had anything like this in any of my planes, so keep that in mind!
 
Provides tons of information, much more precise than old style gauges, helps with record keeping, let’s you see how people treat your plane when they borrow it etc.
 
Is the 930 any different functionally than an 830, or does it just have more paper? I know the 930 can be primary, but does it tell you any more or do anything better or different?
 
LesGawlik said:
Is the 930 any different functionally than an 830, or does it just have more paper? I know the 930 can be primary, but does it tell you any more or do anything better or different?
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I don't know! This one is a 900, not a 930, but it's called EDM Primary 900
 
I really like mine. I yanked out what had been my number #2 nav head (the #1 nav head is now #2 and the primary radio feeds an HSI). Of course, mine's not good for primary, but I used it for that for over a decade with the little Bonanza gauges over on the right side of the panel.

Now I have a EI MVP-50 for all my primaries including the fuel gauges. I like it very much especially has it has a "HEY LOOK AT ME" set of master caution lights that is right above my AI now. I kept the JPI so most of my stuff has redundancy (the only thing I lost was fuel flow on the JPI, for some reason that got lost in the shuffle).
 
I removed everything but the tach. Mostly because there was no advantage to removing it. I wanted fuel and oil pressure hoses out of the cabin so happy to be rid of them.
 
I have a 930. I believe the only difference is the 930 has a larger screen. I love it and would put it in any plane I own. I think the 900 is the same form factor as the 830. I've seen the 830 in @NealRomeoGolf 's plane and while the large screen is nice, they make good use of the real estate on the smaller one and I don't think you're missing much there.

The only factory gauges retained in my plane are the MAP/FF and the tach. I never look at them as the display on the JPI is SO good, easy to read and comprehend, and up where I can see it instead of buried down behind the yoke. I love the fact that the color of the text changes if the gauge gets into the yellow or red range, which really catches your eye. The fuel totalizer and fuel gauge displays are excellent and intuitive. I don't know if I have the factory senders (I think I do), but both the gauges and totalizer are extremely accurate in my plane, and again light years beyond the relatively useless factory gauges.

If I was doing it, I think I would've done it the same way. All the gauges the JPI replaced were electric, so I'd lose them in an electrical failure either way. The readability is so much better, and being up where I can see them I feel adds a lot of safety. You'll also find out the the factory gauges are not all that accurate. My FF and MAP track pretty well, but the factory tach is off 100rpm. I'm tempted to take them out, but I like the idea of having some idea of power setting in case the jpi ever fails.

The data logging can also be quite useful for troubleshooting. My mechanic isn't too interested in it, but I download and look at it.

The lean find feature is pretty worthless, and JPI's customer support is too. I don't think EDM is any better on that front, but I have no direct experience.

I think you'll love it once you have it.
 
Jim K said:
The lean find feature is pretty worthless, and JPI's customer support is too. I don't think EDM is any better on that front, but I have no direct experience.
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I think you mean EI. If so, their lean find is no better. If anything, it's much worse since EI probes react a lot slower than JPI probes.
 
I wish I had that problem. I keep wishing my JPI 700 would die so I could replace it, and a bunch of other panel hogs, with a JPI 900.
 
JOhnH said:
I wish I had that problem. I keep wishing my JPI 700 would die so I could replace it, and a bunch of other panel hogs, with a JPI 900.
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I like our JPI system and would definitely buy one again. Only issue we have had is a Fuel Pressure probe that failed, and that is not much of a problem in a Cessna high wing where you routinely only use the boost pumps for starting. Fuel flow was still accurate without the pressure probe. We had to pull the old fuel gauges which were not much of a loss because the factory fuel gages were very inaccurate. We kept everything else and have back up with them. The location of the JPI in front of the pilot helps with the scan in IFR weather not having to look at anything to the right of the radio stack now. We located the warning light between the altimeter and the IFD540 (left side of the marker beacons). This has already paid for itself as we had some bad fuel with contamination that partially plugged an injector and saved me from burning up a jug on a new engine with less than 50 hours! Red light started flashing and I identified the problem immediately, would not have caught it without the JPI system. I do use the JPI display for leaning, old school guy that believes in Rich of Peak and can now select the warmest cylinder for monitoring. Also better info for CHT numbers. We still have the original EGT and CHT gauges but I can't tell you when I last looked at them? Totally rely on the JPI for temps. I occassionaly glance at the old FF gage for a quick reference and still use the old tach for recording engine hours but rely on the more accurate JPI for RPM, MP and fine tuning the FF setings.
 
Thanks for all of the responses! I'm probably 75% sure I'm going ahead with this. Already stretching what I had budgeted for an airplane, now adding around $8K for this unit and installation hurts. I'm sure it'll be worth it in the long run.
 
Does the 900/930 work with the original (Cessna in my case) fuel senders or do you have to replace those with Ceis, etc.?
 
I replaced everything with the EDM-900 8 or 9 years ago in the Bellanca. I was able to reuse the existing fuel senders, but a proper multi-point calibration means they’re much more representative of what’s in the tank. I had an engine shop accuse me of running without oil pressure as the reason for a crankshaft coming apart. Having per-second data on oil pressure for the entire breakin period put that argument to bed pretty quickly. Paid back the cost of the 900 that day. While the leanfind is pretty useless, the data to properly run LOP has saved me a bunch of fuel cost on cross countries as well.
 
bbarrett said:
While the leanfind is pretty useless, the data to properly run LOP has saved me a bunch of fuel cost on cross countries as well.
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I have heard that before. Why is the leanfind useless?
 
I loved the JPI lean finder. Of course, I had the balanced injectors so my cyls all peaked pretty close to each other.
 
Skyrys62 said:
Does the 900/930 work with the original (Cessna in my case) fuel senders or do you have to replace those with CiES, etc.?
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It may work with the originals... but will be more reliable with modern senders. I repaired my Cessna senders at time of 900 installation. They lasted four years before they started generating errors. Should have installed CiES at the get go.

paul
 
JOhnH said:
I wish I had that problem. I keep wishing my JPI 700 would die so I could replace it, and a bunch of other panel hogs, with a JPI 900.
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You might want to look into that, I had a 730 and there was a significant trade in value JPI offered. I don't know if they still offer this but it might be worth looking into. Also, the 830 / 9xx use the same sensors as the 730 so install was cheap. My avionics guy said JPI offered an extender harness for short money too!
 
JOhnH said:
I have heard that before. Why is the leanfind useless?
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It’s not, but you won’t want to use it if running 75% horsepower or better. The idea is you don’t want to be leaning the engine so it runs at peak EGT while at high power…can result in combustion issues.
If below 6000’ with a NA engine, just quick pull till engine complains and enrich till smooth.
 
I ended up getting it. The shop told me around $3000 for installation, but it ended up being $7300! I'll spare you my opinion on this, I've already given it to the shop owner. Based on JPI's estimated time to install, the original quote should have been around $7000 and I probably would have passed on it.

That being said, I've now flown the plane 3 hours. Buy a new plane and watch the weather tank for a week! I do like the JPI and I'm glad I have it. I'm breaking in a new engine, so having 6 cylinders of CHT and EGT info is nice. I also like the fuel and that it tells me how much longer I can fly, how much fuel it'll take to my destination, etc. I'm not liking that it tells me I'm burning so much fuel, but I'm running very hard right now, so that'll get better! I'm hoping to get a day where I can do a full photo shoot and show off my new plane!

Also, I have a friend who builds planes, including a Hughes H1 inspired racer, and he's going to redesign my whole panel. This is the only thing that I want to improve!
 
7000 is crazy. I did mine under ap supervision and it took 3-6 hour days.
 
Morgan3820 said:
7000 is crazy. I did mine under ap supervision and it took 3-6 hour days.
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It took them 56 hours and JPI says it should take around 60. I wasn't planning on spending $7K, but it is what it is at this point. Hurts though!
 
The fact that the engine was being reinstalled for a rebuild should have lowered the numbers more. Makes me think they first started the engine with the old stuff, then did the installation of the JPI as a separate job.
 
Morgan3820 said:
7000 is crazy. I did mine under ap supervision and it took 3-6 hour days.
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Maybe he has more cylinders?

If you haven’t done it before I can see why it would take close to 60 hours.
Probably take 1-2 hours just to read through the install manual. I’ve seen installations where they clearly didn’t do this.
Drilling holes and installing EGTs might be time consuming.
I know the calibration of the fuel levels took some time, we had to do it twice because of a bad sender.
I helped so I saw the work involved.
 
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